DEEP CREEK When I first read Pam Houston’s acerbic collection of short stories, Cowboys Are My Weakness, I recognized a writer who would have a
BECAUSE THE LIGHT WILL NOT FORGIVE ME Shaun T. Griffin, inductee into the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame, is known as much for his activism
THE BIG NECESSITY AND NINE PINTS Both of these books merit independent reviews, but since they were written by the same author and both investigate
THE LIBRARY BOOK Susan Orlean’s The Library Book couples a moving meditation on the author’s part with the solid research she has conducted in archives
BIBLIOPHILE, AN ILLUSTRATED MISCELLANY I was just about finished with a book review for the ClaytonPioneer when I went through hip replacement and my daughter,
THE BONANZA KING: JOHN MACKAY AND THE BATTLE OVER THE GREATEST RICHES IN THE AMERICAN WEST Gregory Couch’s The Bonanza King: John Mackay and the
TRAVELS WITH MYSELF AND ANOTHER — LOVE AND RUIN What fun to read simultaneously two books about the same person, one a memoir published in
WHAT THE EYES DON’T SEE The contributions of immigrants to the articulation of and striving towards the “American Dream” are unassailable. Those contributions are still
EDUCATED, A MEMOIR In 2014 at age twenty-seven, Idaho-born Tara Westover received a Ph.D. in history from Cambridge University, UK. Remarkable? Yes. Made more remarkable
GRANT After reading Ron Chernow’s Alexander Hamilton, I had some trepidation about opening his newest book, Grant. I didn’t think he could surpass Hamilton (see
CZECHING IN: ADVENTURES BEYOND PRAGUE In her self-published memoir-guidebook-history, Lenka Glassner offers insightful and often humorous glimpses of herself, her culture, her history, and her
WHY I AM NOT A FEMINIST Like veteran news anchorman Howard Beale in the 1976 film Network, Jessa Crispin is “mad as hell,” and she’s
HUÉ 1968: A TURNING POINT OF THE AMERICAN WAR IN VIETNAM Mark Bowden, who wrote the phenomenally successful Black Hawk Down (book and movie), has
THE SOUL OF AN OCTOPUS When the proprietress of Seaport Books, in La Conner, Washington, recommended Sy Montgomery’s The Soul of an Octopus, I must
WHAT HAPPENED Like a dedicated political junkie, I followed in real time the events that Hillary Clinton retraces in her book about the 2016 presidential
RANTS FROM THE HILL In 2010, the High Country News editors asked Mike Branch to write a monthly column for its online edition. They asked
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